Last build of the Year, or...When White isn't White

The following is my last repaint of 2023.  I painted this model in August and just finished putting it together last month.  I’m finally getting around to sharing it on the forum.  My inspiration?

Shoes, yes, black and white oxford saddle shoes to be exact. These were all the rage in the fifties and early sixties.  In fact, both my sisters wore saddle shoes purchased from Buster Brown.  Remember them? 

I know my last shoe analogy went over like a lead balloon and cause some unintended speculation, (and no, JB my feet are not in that picture), but I just had to give it another go.  OK, I gather you know that it’s not really about the shoes, but about the color combination---black and white.  Very popular in the 50’s with all of the car manufacturer, this color combination was almost as popular as white cars are today.  Our subject vehicle today was painted at the same time as the 1970 ‘Cuda I posted back in September.

You might recognize it as a DM 1955 Oldsmobile convertible, originally Polar White over Burlingame Red with red interior.  Following is a little tutorial of painting the seats.

Painting the interior is a bit involved.  First thing is scuffing the seats and interior panels with a fine 3M sanding pad.  Then cleaning them and mounting them for primer.

Next is masking off just the inserts of the seats and door panels and then painting the seat bolsters white.  When that is dry, remove the tape and mask off everything that was just painted white.  Then paint the inserts black.  The pic below shows the masked off inserts after applying the white paint. 

Polar white is actually a very “dirty” white.  I mixed up some white paint for the interior, toning it down a bit but not enough.  You can see the difference in the mockup pic below.  The back seat is way too white and doesn’t match the car body.  Wow, did I get it wrong!  The top boot in the picture is from the turquoise LE, so you see, white is not white.

Below is the actual interior color I used.  I put some white in for comparison.  It doesn’t look white in the can but amazingly, it does on the seats.  I then resprayed the white.  Sorry, no pics of the process for the black inserts.  🙁

Here’s the finished product, it turned out to be one of my favorites!  Thanks for looking and enjoy!